In the Front Gallery, featuring the work of Ajit Chauhan

This series of drawings by Ajit Chauhan are based on his experiences riding different bicycle rickshaws in India. Chauhan describes riding the rickshaws, decorated in folk paintings, as if he were perched on the back of a pregnant, electric animal. His experiences are chronicled in this body of work: one time he became very dizzy and almost fainted. Another time, he was accidentally routed through a masked procession and saw everyone turning into fish. The work can be seen as a kind of psychedelic cannibalism. Chauhan writes that “you can build a relationship between any two points”; a woodpecker’s beak and a man’s tooth may become joined. Elements are also anthropomorphized; a coconut may turn into a smiling face, or a palm tree may become a beard. Chauhan describes his process by explaining that “drawing is kind of like sleeping with your eyes open. In the best of times things materialize without choice”.